CSA Slaves Revolt

Anaxagoras

Banned
that seems unlikely. The one thing about a mass slave revolt would be that the enemy would be all over the place, not confined to a front line in a war. When the Union armies surged forward in OTL, the southern armies saw wide scale desertion, even though the armies were nowhere near a lot of their homes. In this scenario, the solders' families are threatened pretty much everywhere...

A mass slave revolt is all but impossible, given that it would be impossible for insurgent groups to communicate with each other. Any uprising would be local in nature and would only spread it it were successful (this is a significant plot point in House of the Proud, incidentally). Moreover, the mass desertions in the Confederate Army only really reached the tipping point after the reelection of Lincoln in the fall of 1864, when it became clear to the average Southern soldier that there was no realistic change of victory any longer.

Now, if something like this happened in early 1865, we could see Southern armies fall apart in the manner you describe, with men flocking back to defend their homes. In that timeframe, however, the Union army would also be nearby and would quickly men in to restore order, probably facing no Confederate opposition at all.
 
No, it just means that such a rebellion would be localized in, say, Wilcox County, Alabama. It wouldn't erupt simultaneously across Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi all at once.
well, the OP wants a full scale Haiti type of revolt, so that doesn't fit the bill...
 
well, the OP wants a full scale Haiti type of revolt, so that doesn't fit the bill...

The OP is very near ASB. Haiti was the one and only time in known history that a slave revolt actually worked. Before then the slave revolt was put down before it could overthrow the government. There were a number of factors that were present in Haiti that allowed it to happen that weren't present in the South such as massively outnumbering the slave owners and not having only a small army anywhere near it. The Whites would outnumber or only be slightly outnumbered by Blacks and had a well trained large army.
 
The OP is very near ASB. Haiti was the one and only time in known history that a slave revolt actually worked. Before then the slave revolt was put down before it could overthrow the government. There were a number of factors that were present in Haiti that allowed it to happen that weren't present in the South such as massively outnumbering the slave owners and not having only a small army anywhere near it. The Whites would outnumber or only be slightly outnumbered by Blacks and had a well trained large army.
I don't know why anyone would want that kind of revolt to be successful again, all it did was genocide the Whites on Haiti and really radicalize the South as French refugees told horror stories about what the slaves did to their families. It just screams violent revenge fantasy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haiti_massacre#Effect_on_United_States_society

Edit: Wouldn't a nicer POD be butterflying this event from happening, leading to an improving of race relations way earlier?
 
The Blacks get wiped out. Like it or not the Whites have larger numbers, better training, better weaponry, better organizations and more money. On Haiti the Whites were outnumbered 10:1 or more and few had military training while the Blacks had nothing to lose as life expectancy was so low there. In the CSA Whites outnumber Blacks, many had military training and the life expectancy of a slave was decades. Haiti was seen as an example to White Southerners and they pretty determined it wouldn't happen to them and took steps to avoid it. Much as I strongly dislike the Antebellum South they were not stupid people to the last man.

While this is generally true, there were sections of the Confederacy where the majority of the population was black. Also, the large number of men in the Confederate army had left a lot less men in the slave patrols. A major revolt in some areas would probably overwhelm the few white men still at home, requiring Confederate military forces to be diverted to put down the revolt.

I don't consider a slave revolt likely as long as the Union is holding it's own, Escape was a better option - I've seen estimates of roughly 500,000 slaves escaped to Union territory. So was waiting for the Confederacy to fall. In a timeline where it Confederate independence looks probable, waiting would give the slaves no chance at freedom and there would be limited time to escape before the end of the war freed up enough Confederate troops to stop any chance of escape. That could trigger thousands or even tens of thousands of slaves trying to flee while they still could and fighting anyone who tried to stop them.
 
A brutally savage uprising would not play well in the North. Even free blacks like Frederick Douglass knew this and never called for such action. Why do think he and and other main stream abolitionists were conspicuously absent from Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry?

What IS more likely is a Spartacus like rebellion that amasses an ad hoc Army that marches northward freeing slaves as it attempts to reach Union lines. It is very likely that something like this, especially if joined by persecuted white Unionists, would be greeted with open arms by many in the North. Think Free State of Jones meets Spartacus by way of Xenophon's Ten Thousand. That would have been great.

Benjamin
 
A brutally savage uprising would not play well in the North. Even free blacks like Frederick Douglass knew this and never called for such action. Why do think he and and other main stream abolitionists were conspicuously absent from Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry?

What IS more likely is a Spartacus like rebellion that amasses an ad hoc Army that marches northward freeing slaves as it attempts to reach Union lines. It is very likely that something like this, especially if joined by persecuted white Unionists, would be greeted with open arms by many in the North. Think Free State of Jones meets Spartacus by way of Xenophon's Ten Thousand. That would have been great.

Benjamin

"Free State of Jones meets Spartacus by way of Xenophon's Ten Thousand" would be much more awesome for actual history if that happened.

For the purpose of entertaining the board, I think a AHTL brutally savage uprising would be better. Not that I'd want to live in that continuity of course
 
What IS more likely is a Spartacus like rebellion that amasses an ad hoc Army that marches northward freeing slaves as it attempts to reach Union lines. It is very likely that something like this, especially if joined by persecuted white Unionists, would be greeted with open arms by many in the North. Think Free State of Jones meets Spartacus by way of Xenophon's Ten Thousand. That would have been great.
wow. That is a rather fascinating POD....
 
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